New Bundled Service Save Clients Money

When I started my business nearly ten years ago, my mission was to give start-up and small businesses an edge over their competitors by offering agency quality products without all the overhead. How did I do that? I began offering services “a la carte” meaning clients only paid for what they needed. If they only needed business cards, that’s all they received.

Because of the recent high number of layoffs in this country, start-up companies are blossoming all around us. To help them out, for the first time ever, I am offering my most popular services bundled together for one flat rate … and at a fraction of their normal price.

The Standard New Business Starter Kit (pictured here) includes a custom logo design, logo branding guide with CD, and design and printing of 1,000 full-color business cards. Add a website or a trifold brochure to the Standard Kit and you’ll save even more!

Money is always tight for start-ups and must be budgeted carefully, so I’m also offering a three month payment plan for these great new products … something that’s unheard of in my industry.

I believe helping our neighbors is a fundamental requirement of living in any community, even more so during difficult times.

“Tara really takes the time to understand your business and the message you are trying to get across. She is extremely creative and has a staff who are also excellent at what they do.”
– Janet Johnson, The JJ Team

“Tingalls is extremely accessible, easy to work with and very responsive, especially for a start-up business like mine. I had a concept, a vision really, of what I wanted to convey to customers and prospects with my logo, my Web site and written communications. Tingalls took that vision and made it into something real and identifiable, a brand.”
– Jim Schmitt, president of Schmitt Technical Services, LLC    More Testimonials >>

My hope is that these new products will help emerging businesses get off the ground and help make them money during their first year. *

DPI vs. PPI

The measurement ppi (pixels per inch) is used to describe the resolution on an electronic viewing device like a computer monitor or digital camera. A pixel is a block of color. If there are very few pixels per inch, you will see the individual pixels and the image will appear to have jagged edges. An image that has smooth edges has more pixels per inch.

DPI (dots per inch) is used to describe the potential print quality of an image. The higher the dpi, the better an image will print on press or on your desktop printer.

The difference between the two is obviously inherent with the output device that will ultimately be used to reproduce the image. If the image you are working with is destined for a website, 72 ppi would be a fine setting for the image. The file size will remain small which is desirable for clients viewing your website—loading time is cut to a minimum. If the image will be reproduced on a press or other printing device, the graphic needs to be at least 300 dpi at 100%.

A photo taken with a digital camera at a 72 ppi setting will e-mail easily, but it will not print very well if enlarged to, say, a 5”x7”. [Article reprinted from Fresh Ink Quarterly, a Tingalls Dzyn newsletter]

Alternative Uses For Business Cards

Aggressive business card marketing isn’t about handing your business cards out to everyone you see. The card itself must have a new use, an innovative design, or something other than the usual contact information printed on it. To make your little card stand out, try these other ideas.

Print something other than business card information on biz card-sized cardstock. You have seen loyalty cards for “buy 10 get one free” offers; why not print one of your own? Print a frequent buyer card or other promotional offer on a card. The whole card can be a coupon for a free consultation, a discount, or a free gift with purchase. Remember include an expiration date! Then hand them out to all your customers.

See some of our newest designs at www.tingalls.com/bizcard.php

Do you have PMS?

McDonald’s Golden Arches™, Coca-Cola’s red logo, IKEA’s signature blue and yellow logo—all of these companies and many more use color to maintain a consistent and readily identifiable image. But, how does a global company like McDonald’s ensure that their trademarked logo printed on packaging in Japan matches the color used on signage here in the US?

Enter the Pantone® Matching System®, known to many as PMS or simply Pantone colors. First created in 1963 by Lawrence Herbert, the Pantone system has become the worldwide trusted source for the art and science of color. According to www.pantone.com, Herbert was “fascinated by the challenge of developing a universal color specification system.” He set out to create universal color standards and succeeded with incredible results. PMS colors are now used in many different industries, including digital technology, textiles and fashion, plastics, paint, architecture, and (of course) printing.

Forecasting colors for upcoming years has become big business for Pantone. Insight into what colors consumers will find desirable is of the utmost importance to the fashion and interior decorating industries. What clothing colors will consumers want next year? What paint colors will be hot? What colors will fall out of favor? As if looking into a crystal ball, the color masters at Pantone can offer these forecasts with remarkable accuracy. According to www.pantoneuniverse.com, the upcoming hot colors in fashion include “Nourishing” and “Recharging” colors. These new colors have names like Winetasting, Beet Red, Pinecone, Medal Bronze, Darkest Spruce, and Fennel Seed. Coming soon to stores near you!

Additionally, the printing industry relies on Pantone for accurately matching colors as they run on press. Press operators mix the inks as they are needed according to the specific formulas indicated in the Pantone color guides. For example, if your logo consists of a reddish color called PMS 201, the pressman printing your job would know exactly what color that is and be able to match it exactly. For nearly everyone in the printing industry, the guesswork behind creating and matching colors has been taken out of the formula. Color consistency is the rule, not the exception.

A few tips for using color in your marketing efforts:
1. Keep your colors, design, and message clean and concise. Overusing color can be hard for a customer to read or understand. (Just think of those websites that make poor use of color and muddy their messages.)
2. Use your chosen colors consistently. If you have picked out a Pantone color, be sure that your printer or webmaster is aware of it. That way you can be assured that your celadon green logo doesn’t print as forest green.
3. Ask the experts. If you want to explore new color possibilities for your logo or overall  company image, consult with Tara Ingalls of Tingalls Design. She will help move your small business to a new level of marketing and communications. Your marketing will have more impact, your mailings will be more noticeable, and your business will look more even more professional. [Article reprinted from Fresh Ink Quarterly, a Tingalls Dzyn quarterly newsletter]

Raster vs. Vector

Raster images are collections of pixels, blocks of color that are very small. These pixels are small enough that, to the naked eye, an image can appear to have smooth edges. The printing quality of raster images, also known as bitmaps, depends strongly on the resolution of the image. The width and height of this type of image is given in pixels. The more pixels per inch you have, the better the resolution of the image and the printing quality. Raster images include photographs, scanned images, and graphics created in software like Adobe Photoshop.

Vector graphics are very different. These graphics are created through mathematical formulas that allow easily for an increase or decrease in size with no loss of quality. Lines, gradients, and geometric shapes are used in vector graphics. Software programs such as Adobe Illustrator are used to create and edit vector graphics.

EPS – An Encapsulated Postscript (EPS) file is a very versatile format to use. Text and graphics can be combined to form an EPS. Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop are programs used to create and edit high-quality EPS files.

TIFF – TIFF stands for Tagged Image File Format. TIFFs are primarily used to save photos, scanned images, and other graphics that do not contain text or vector information. Adobe Photoshop is among the programs used to create and edit TIFFs.

JPEG  – JPEGs (or Joint Photographic Experts Group) are best used for Internet images. What you may not know about JPEGs, however, is that when a graphic is converted to a JPEG, image data might be lost every time the file is resaved. JPEG’s claim to fame is its compression factor: quality is given up to make the file smaller which is desirable for the Internet but not for printing. You may have noticed this when printing an image off of the Web.

GIF – Graphics Interchange Format, aka GIF, is another low-resolution file that is also used for the Web. GIFs are rather limited in color choices to keep file sizes small. GIFs, therefore, do not print very well. GIFs can be animated with the right software. [Article reprinted from Fresh Ink Quarterly, a Tingalls Dzyn newsletter]

All of these formats and more are included in our Logo Branding Guide.

10 Business Building Tips

As you may know, Tingalls Dzyn has grown solely by networking and word of mouth marketing. Below are some of my best kept secrets to help build your business in 2009.

1. Be seen as a pro. Write an article about your profession and submit it to your local newspaper or neighborhood association’s newsletter.
2. Mobile advertising. Letter your vehicle’s bumper with your website address.
3. Join forces. Contact members of your power team; vendors you regularly do business with. You may have the same niche and can share client lists.
4. Exhibit. Showcase a new product or service at an upcoming tradeshow.
5. Be generous. Offer your services for free or at a discount to nonprofits. This not only helps your community but also builds goodwill.
6. Get online. Get a Facebook or Linked In account to spread the news about your business or specials you’re currently offering.
7. And the winner is … Create a service gift certificate and bring it to the next nextworking event to be given out as a door prize.
8. Tap into friends and family. You never know who your next big client could be – it could be your uncle Bob! Be sure to add their companies to your general mailing list.
9. Trade. Offer to barter or trade your products for services you need.
10. Network. Network. Network. Madison offers many free networking opportunities to help build word of mouth advertising. Join me as a guest to the various events I attend.

How can I increase my website ranking?

A colleague of mine from a company that specializes in search engine optimization (SEO) said one of the most important searchable pieces of your website is actually in the title tag – the description that appears at the top of the window when you’re browsing. I recently changed mine to include logo design and website design in addition to graphic design and am seeing some results from doing so.

As far as meta tags go, just because you have a keyword listed in your source code, if you don’t have it in your content, it’s basically dropped by search engines (i.e. google.com). It’s their way of weeding out sites that just list buzz words. For example, if you were to put “Obama” in your list … sure, it’s a popular keyword but if you don’t have copy that duplicates “Obama” in your website, it’s not “counted” to enhance your company’s ranking. Make sense?

What I suggest to my clients is to pick out your top 10-15 phrases or keywords to describe your company’s products and/or services and make those your meta tags (on all your pages). Then for each per page, write a title tag that’s specific for the content within that page that also includes your company name. Then, for additional ranking, write up a page description that’s 1-2 sentences describing what’s on the page and use keywords in the headlines of your pages instead of generic words like “welcome” or “services”.

Below is what I have for my logo design page:

Title Tag: Logo Design – Tingalls Dzyn, LLC in Madison, Wisconsin
Page Description: Logo Design – professional affordable eye-catching at Tingalls Dzyn
Meta Tags: logo design, graphic design, website design, Tingalls Dzyn, Tingles Design, Madison, Fitchburg, Wisconsin, etc. …

One final note: Updating content regularly also plays a VERY important role in website ranking. So be sure to be making updates to your website at least quarterly. Or, have a link to a blog where you can keep content current via articles and the like. I just launched a blog of my own at www.tingallsblog.com It’s filled with tips and tricks and general information on my industry.

Good luck!

Why You Must Market During a Recession

During the Great Depression that began in 1929, many companies we still know today kicked into high gear with aggressive marketing while their competitors cut the marketing budget. Proctor & Gamble is a prime example; even though shareholders screamed for less advertising, P&G increased it while their competitors cut back or discontinued it. As a result, P&G survived the Great Depression financially healthy. Almost 70 years later, P&G is still a well-known firm because during each recession that came after the Depression, they increased their advertising. You can bet they’re increasing their marketing now because they’ve proven to themselves that the strategy is smart.

So how does this 70-year old business strategy apply to you today? Get thinking the way successful companies did in times far more difficult than what we’re facing now.  If you don’t adapt, you may find yourself falling behind and unable to catch up. Don’t just float down the stream — swim against the current.

Marketing is absolutely critical now; nothing could be more important. It’s not enough to have your website up and running smoothly – something has to drive traffic to it. A study published by Penton Media in 1993 stated that “businesses that maintain aggressive marketing programs during a recession outperform companies that rely more on cost-cutting measures.” McGraw-Hill Research found the same results after the 1981-82 recession: companies that had maintained or increased their advertising during the recession enjoyed an average sales growth of 275% over the next 5 years, and those who cut their advertising only saw 19% growth.

Marketing is an investment, not an expense. That’s not a theory, but a historically proven fact. It worked during the Great Depression and in every recession since then, and it will work today.

If you no longer have the necessary marketing resources internally because of budget cuts, or never had a marketing department, consider hiring freelance design firms like Tingalls Dzyn. Freelancers are an excellent approach to buying expertise on a per-project or as-needed basis.
If you’re serious about staying in business throughout this recession, the wisest approach historically is to market yourself vigorously. Stand up and be noticed!

Source: www.marketing.about.com/od/marketingtipsandadvice/a/mktgcommand.htm

Networking Works!

Did you know Tingalls Dzyn began with only a handful of clients back in 2001. Grown entirely through word-of-mouth marketing, networking, and client referrals, Tingalls Dzyn is now home to more than 300 start-up and small businesses just like yours.

Why Go Freelance?

Freelance graphic designers like Tingalls Dzyn are the perfect alternative to advertising agencies when you have the basic idea or message, you just need someone to execute it.

Ranging in price from $65 to $150 an hour depending on skill level and expertise, freelancers can be very affordable. For example, let’s say you need a basic advertisement designed for a magazine. Because freelancers use the most up-to-date desktop publishing software, what could take you hours to complete using Microsoft Word or Powerpoint, could take a freelancer a half hour and cost you less than $50.

It’s important to ask yourself the following questions:
(1)     How valuable is my time?
(2)     What sales will be lost by spending hours on designing this ad?
(3)     Will it be professional and meet the requirements of my printer?

Consider your answers and if you’ve reached a point of frustration or feel you’re wasting valuable sales time, pick up the phone and call a freelancer … you’ll be happy you did.

Another important reason to choose freelancers is their quick turnaround. At most freelance companies, projects can be completed in just a few days, and you work directly with your designer, no account reps or red tape to deal with. Most will even coordinate print quotes, proofing and delivery for you making your job even easier.

Many times as a business owner, we have difficulty stepping back and “looking in” objectively on our business from our customers’ perspectives. A freelancer has the background and knowledge to ask the right questions to tailor the project to meet your exact needs. For example they’ll ask, “Who is your target audience?” As a business owner, you know who your target audience is therefore you may accidentally omit important attention-grabbing text to pull your reader into your copy. A designer is going to ask you, “who is this for, who will pick it up, how will it be handed out” and they’ll use supporting graphics and/or text to catch they eye of your audience.

When you have the initial idea, freelance graphic designers can bring your marketing game to the next level. With affordable pricing, quick turnaround and the skill to help you succeed, the answer is clear.